Is Your Research Career AI-Proof? What You Need to Know Now

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy The Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

 

The insights industry faces an existential moment: adapt to AI or become irrelevant. This episode cuts through the hype to explore what really matters—why the selling process is dead, how to differentiate through expertise, and the emotional toll of constant disruption that no one's talking about. From data quality imperatives to platform updates and funding signals, discover what separates professionals who will thrive from those who'll be left behind.

Plus, honest conversation about change fatigue, job anxiety, and finding purpose in an AI-augmented workplace.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript

Lenny Murphy: There we are. All right. Happy Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. It's been a week. It's been a week. Lots going on. We won't bore you with all of that. But if Kara and I both are kind of like, oh, just know that it's been a week on all fronts.

Karen Lynch: Largely personal. Both things happen.

Lenny Murphy: Largely personal.

Karen Lynch: Today is my father's birthday though, you know, not that he would listen to this or even understand it because when I've tried to explain it, he doesn't get it. But my father's birthday is today, so.

Lenny Murphy: Oh, happy birthday.

Karen Lynch: This man who, you know, despite his circumstances, he's, you know, lived with Parkinson's for over a decade and he's still turning 87. So God bless this man.

Lenny Murphy: That's amazing. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's cool. So God But God bless Karen's dad. Happy birthday. We won't sing, though.

Karen Lynch: We won't sing. He'll never hear this.

Lenny Murphy: And part of what made it such a week was, you know, it is just a Herculean effort to get grit done. Guys, I mean, truly not looking for, you know, oh, you know, any accolades or anything, but it really is a massive multi-team effort. Grit was out the door this week. And then we did The Grit Forum, which is also kind of a marathon for those of us that are trying to facilitate that. Karen got The, she got The out this year. Previous years we've tag teamed, but you had other stuff going on. And so I just did The, okay, here we go. So, but let's talk because I think for those who didn't watch it, and Karley, The links to both The report and The On Demand, we've talked about this, we hinted at it. I mean, this report, there's no mistaking The data on The transformation of The industry that we've been talking about forever, but it was quantified, and also unmistakable that there's pain being felt from The standpoint of, you know, some businesses are really feeling that transformation impact in not necessarily a good way. No one who listens to this show should be surprised, but in The Grit Forum, we talked about it, then there were multiple panels, and everybody on The panels talked about it. It turned into kind of a therapy session, I think, of like, you know, The first step is we message that there's a problem, right? So...

Karen Lynch: Well, one of the things you talked about that I want you to expand on for... Okay. We don't wanna repeat everything on The grid forum, but I wanted... One of The things that stood out to me before we get into kind of The call to action, and so I'm gonna moderate you a little bit here.

Lenny Murphy: Please do.

Karen Lynch: Becoming infrastructure. And I think that... So we've talked about AI as a disruption a ton on this, but this week you talked about AI And I think that was a good paradigm shift for people to understand. So expand upon that specifically for this audience.

Lenny Murphy: Sure. So we're through the experimentation phase. I mean, at this point, the material benefits of AI from a business process standpoint, just fundamental to how businesses function and get stuff done, that's unmistakable. It's only going to get better from here. And then methodologically, right, we are seeing the proof points, both from a utilization utility perspective, as well as methodologically. All of that is that it is their infrastructure that's changing the way businesses operate across the board, whether it is from just internal to external to the solutions that we are offering. And there's lots of variations on the theme of that, but that migration to a new system, a new series of technologies that augment and in some cases replace our traditional way of doing things is absolutely unmistakable. And it's still, there is no winner in terms of what that infrastructure system is. That is still very much up for grabs. So there's a lot of experimentation on which you know which underlying technology to use, but that very, very clearly there is one way. Absolutely.

Karen Lynch: So that's sort of like The, okay, that's The, that's The, um, that's The very tactical takeaway, The, The more emotional takeaway, which you kind of alluded to in your editor's note of The report, it's in The executive summary. You talked about it on The forum is The, um, The threat to certain businesses. And that, I do want to talk about that because like, let's, what I said to Lenny briefly before The show started is, you know, we pulled off a Band-Aid and before it scabs over, let's just say it one more time for The people in The back who might be missing The threat. You know, I think the phrase that I picked up on in one of those was gradualism meaning irrelevance. Or guiding you or pointing you and The risk of becoming, The risk of failing within The year, The risk of not being relevant to your customers in a year, say. Let's just talk about that very hard pill to swallow.

Lenny Murphy: Definitely a hard pill to swallow. And it was a hard prescription to write, I guess. But it's unmistakable in the data. It's on The trend line, so therefore The implication is easy to see. And that's certainly informed by the qualitative conversations that occur on a regular basis. And we've warned on this show for quite some time. If you're still waiting to jump on the train, you missed it. Well, you haven't missed it yet, but it is time. There's another train. There's another train, but there's- The littler train is coming. And, and it's, it's, it's just simply, this technology is not a flash in the pan. It's not a, you know, it's not a, uh, The next shiny thing. It is utterly transformative in every way that we can think about. Uh, and The, and pragmatically The impact. So, brands are waiting for us on the supplier side too. They're not questioning, is this going to create value for them? They're already expecting the speed and cost efficiencies, period, full stop. They see the use, the quality benefits in some use cases, not at all. They're waiting for The supplier community to now, you know, figure out the rest and put all that there. But the expectation, so when we look at, well, clients aren't adopting that that much yet. No, clients are waiting for us to lead them and to bring those solutions. And it is absolutely, if we look at The data on The sectors on The supplier side, tech versus service. Who's growing? Tech companies. Why are tech companies growing? Buyers are buying from them, period. Who's hurting? Suppliers, full service. Agencies who are not competing effectively. Yeah. And from the solution standpoint, and it doesn't mean everything there's niches or certainly, you know, specialization where, you know, it's, it's going to take longer, but the direction of travel is incredibly clear. Um, and happening in this was The, The, my biggest takeaway from this report was The pace of change was far faster than we anticipated. If we'd looked at the wave on wave approach. From data from GRIT from this time last year, we didn't see this massive adoption shift and the impacts. We predicted it was going to happen, but we didn't see it. We saw it, and it was still faster than I thought it was going to happen.

Karen Lynch: So that's where that- And I just want to go back to one thing you just said too, which is for those agencies that are full service suppliers, The, what, what, what your point of differentiation is has to be really clear right now. And your, um, it, it has to be, and it has to be compelling, um, because everybody is now faster, better, cheaper, right? Like, like that trifecta. Yeah, we're good there. So what, what's the value you're bringing to The table in your agency specifically? And then also what is your relationship with AI? Because we've talked before, table stakes, whatever, but how are you utilizing The AI technology? Because everybody is. So what's your relationship with it? And is it the driving force between everything you do? Are you AI for efficiency, but humans in The mix? Are you innovating with it every second? I think that the important thing is your identity is what you need to be focusing on straight away, in my opinion, my takeaway from The week.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. Well, Anna, you've written about some of this, which by the way, I love your new series.

Karen Lynch: You know what, it's that when something gives me pause, what I realized in The last several weeks is that, and it's highly personal, it's not a green book thing, it's just when I see something that really talks about our humanity and The emotions emotions that we're going through, or The realities we're going through, The tensions we're going through as individuals during this time. In the professional context, of course, I'm not just writing out there on Substack about how I feel as a person, but...

Lenny Murphy: Oh, I do. If you find my Substack, it's all over The place, and it's really personal, so y'all probably don't want to Read it, but...

Karen Lynch: No, it's just something that's... What happens to me often, and I just decided... I was having a creative evening, and I just Like, you know what? People are adapting to change so rapidly and we're tired, right? Change fatigue is real. So that's kind of one thing that I noticed. The job market, all of that stuff. We have all of these tensions in our systems right now because of what's happening in our world and there's no landing place for it. There was a gap in the conversations around, hey, how are you doing? With all this stuff. And every now and then I see something on LinkedIn, which is like, I want somebody to talk about it. And I just started to look through it, look at those posts with the lens of a qualitative researcher, like, all right, what's The human truth here? Like, what are they alluding to? Why did this post make me pause? So that's kind of what I'm doing there.

Lenny Murphy: It's, um, I love it. And I think it's needed. Right. I mean, going into the reform was this idea of like, this is going to become a therapy session, right? Because all The, all The things that you said, I want to call it one thing though, as I think it's important for our listeners. And you just said about the differentiation. And I want to make sure there's some empathy here. Again, you and I work within Greenbook, et cetera, et cetera. But for our audience, I am a sole entrepreneur. So I am a consultant. So I am an insights and strategy consultant. That is what I do for a living. You guys see this, and you see The Greenbook, and you see all that stuff. As a client, I help in a very specific way in doing that. But I wanna make sure that I'm right there with you if you are a small agency. And I grappled with this myself in multiple ways. Here's where I've gotten. My differentiation is my depth of knowledge and experience in a specific category, which happens to be The insight space. So that is my differentiation. So there's, I'm, I'm just one of The best in The world at that, because I've been doing this for a while, but I'm not The only one, but there's other people that just eat, breathe and drink this stuff constantly, right? I'm just one of those. Okay. Now how do I stay competitive? So I use The AI tools on a regular basis to help me do things faster and more efficiently and effectively. That's not my, The value is not The process of how I produce my deliverables. It simply allows me to do more of those deliverables. The value is my expertise and my thinking and all of those things. So I don't, I only do that just as an example, guys. If you're in an, if you're an agency, if you're a moderator, if you're a consultant, whatever it is, this is The path that we're on. You can navigate through this. You can be effective and focus on your value. Your unique expertise, that's The differentiator. It's not The process. But that's hard because we build businesses based on process, cost plus process. That's The Shift. That's where the pain is being felt, fundamentally, is the price compression. But we can work through all of those things. And I'm telling you, I've been in the trenches with you on this every day for the last couple years and I've gotten to a point where I feel really good about the future. I feel great about the future of the industry. I feel good about my own future and these tools are an embedded part of how I can be even better than I am today. So I hope that helps from a therapy standpoint. I didn't get a chance to say that during the forum.

Karen Lynch: Well I think that you know this is where I'm gonna go to The Qualtrics report that I came out this week.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, good segue. Let's move along.

Karen Lynch: So Qualtrics published this week, The 2026 Global Marker Research Fund. So Qualtrics is a great customer of ours. We've sponsored a lot of things with us. You know, so we're, we're brand fans of most, if not all of our customers. But one of the things that Allie Henriquez pointed out in this report is that insights professionals feel quite secure in their roles. 90% that participated in their study of 3,000 plus researchers across 15 countries, quite 90% secure in their roles and are embracing The shift to AI workflows in market research. And I think that that's really important because as you're saying, I feel good right now. It's because you've wrestled The beast for your own business. You've wrestled it. And I imagine that there are people that are currently wrestling. And that is like, holy shit, I didn't even know I needed to get into The ring. Like, great. So, Lenny walked out feeling victorious. Got The damn belt.

Lenny Murphy: But other people- I love that you carried that reference forward.

Karen Lynch: Anyway, go ahead. So, but the reality is this report, I think was very, it was a great compliment to what we did, validating on many levels, but also this particular stat pointed out to me, you know, like, like, that's what I want for everyone. I want for people to feel secure, because they have, they've embraced this, and they've gotten to The possibilities. I think we've said that all along, like, I've been excited about the possibilities. And I want other people to get there as well. Not that it isn't hard, not that this isn't a stressful time. It also goes on to say non AI teams are losing influence and budget. So that's, again, think about that. If you don't have AI in your team, if you are in your organization and AI is not a part of it, time for some advocacy, I think. Because of this report, 78 are predicting AI agents will run most projects by 2028. So again, none of that feels surprising to you and I. We've been talking about AI agents, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that, you know, I think that if you look at what we learned in this Grit wave, complement it with some kind of other data from another source. Now we're triangulating what's happening in the industry and we're seeing it clearly.

Lenny Murphy: I just want to reiterate that, right? That this is not duplicative, it's complimentary. They ask questions we didn't ask. That's an example of one we didn't ask about: the adoption of agents. So really encourage you to download it. Download with Grit. What I did, I loaded them both up into perplexity, as well as a couple more. And I synthesized all the results into perplexity. And, you know, so give me a good summary of, you know, all of the key trends from both reports. There we go.

Karen Lynch: Let's segue into platforms real quick.

Lenny Murphy: Yes.

Karen Lynch: Well, yeah, so you know, you're all you're all in with perplexity. And I like perplexity, too. But currently I'm all in with Atlas as a browser, which has The chat to PT integration, and I'm enjoying my time over there. So, Google announced this week also that Gemini 3 here delivers, you know, better answers with less prompting, deeper understanding of a user request, like being able to kind of conceptualize what the real ask is in some of the prompting that we're doing. And they're rolling it out across Gemini and Enterprise products. And, you know, certainly we work in a, at Greenbook, we work in a Google ecosystem. So, you know, we have Gmail, we have Chrome as a browser, primarily. And now just like Atlas, you know, has chat GPT in the upper right, Gemini is up there in the upper right, I can pull it into any website that I'm on and say, Hey, Gemini, what do you think about this? And have those conversations? I personally don't think it's as strong as what I've got going on in Atlas. But that probably is because I now have two to three years of history with GPT in my world. So I mean, with OpenAI's product in my world. However, the race is still on. This technology is getting better and better.

Lenny Murphy: 100 percent. I saw something this morning that we didn't make it in because we didn't need to. It's just interesting that OpenAI is not beating Google from the standpoint of Google's infrastructure. It is so integrated into for so many of us either. I have a, you know, Samsung. Yeah, those are just The pragmatic realities of, you know, these new emerging platforms. Just beating. Yeah, it's just an adoption issue. And some things are just baked in. And we're lazy. I don't want to switch off Google. I don't want as much as I love perplexity. I don't use comments. Because everything I'm a I'm a Google guy, right? As much as I like Google, I still use it.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, Comet doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. It's one of those usability things, right?

Lenny Murphy: Like, there you go. Right, right, right. So all of this, The point is all of this is still very much up in The air and we're still trying to figure it out. But the direction of travel again is clear. And we are also aware of each individual preference on doing this.

Karen Lynch: Keyword, notice we're talking about trying, experimenting. And I talk about like, I'm now in Atlas, but I have Google here. I have Comet here. It's about experimentation. And in my view of everything, just get out there and be using all of these things, regardless of your research platforms and tools and solutions and all that. What's your personal skill level with all of the possibilities? Because of this next article. I hope this link works. It's a New York Times article. It hit today, actually. And I've been given the article. I just don't know if I can give it to the masses. I don't know what's... Can I use a gift article link here? I don't...

Lenny Murphy: You can go to an archive, like archive.org, and you can pull it.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah. In any event, the NVIDIA-led AI stock boom shows a bet on enterprise productivity. And I just thought, I'm like, okay, this is interesting, because we don't always talk about The stock market. Sometimes we do, but you can't help but watch what's happening here. And this article really is talking about you know, some of it seems really obvious when you read it. Obviously, if you're in this space where Lenny and I are in this headspace of trying to understand all of this, but, you know, really, The money is The money is still being bet on these enterprise wide productivity solutions. Lots of money. Where it's affecting our stock market, pay attention. Because what does that mean? That means to me, like, Of course, large organizations that are also traded are paying attention to how AI is in our ecosystems enterprise-wide. Back to Qualtrics. It is not a coincidence that Qualtrics has leaned heavily into AI in their platform, which is globally logged into every day by millions of people. Of course, AI is going to be built into their infrastructure full circle back up to that, right. So anyway, it's a breadcrumb, but I encourage everybody to kind of pay attention. You know, we we do talk about following The money, but but The big picture is, you know, how can you steer your spend your data spend and drive home prove your your ROI with AI because I think that's that's a universal lesson for everyone.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. And then we'll segue since you've been doing a good job moving us along. And now it's about data quality, because fundamentally, all everything that we were talking about at The fountain, you know, The core foundational layer is data. And so this week, a lot that was interesting about that The global data quality initiative, released three new resources, strengthening trust, integrity and research, check that out. You know, they've been doing good work and trying to understand that from a research perspective. Really interesting. Adrian Vermeersch, I think I pronounced that correctly, Adrian. He was monitoring 30 plus telegram channels targeting surveys. Yeah, it reminded me very much of the work that Echo did, right?

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lenny Murphy: There is still, there is an economy that exists of fraud and it's pervasive.

Karen Lynch: Um, so did you know that it was fraud awareness week, international fraud, international fraud awareness week. You were wrapping that up. That's stressful. I didn't even know what happened and I'm really glad.

Lenny Murphy: I know. I know. I mean, did we get a hat or what? You know, how are you? It's really interesting.

Karen Lynch: So this post, um, from Adrian, it's, it's a LinkedIn post about it and when you start The comments, it's just like, all right, you see The people, The folks in The industry chiming in, kind of weighing in on all of it. So to me, that's an interesting thread to check out. So I hope you go over there.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. And then you, I wasn't aware that The EU was tweaking things. You found this?

Karen Lynch: So The EU is proposing tweaks to their GDPR guidelines, and of course, their AI Act, which is a part of what they're monitoring now, but simplifying consent and aligning AI rules, right? So there's a quote from The link that Karley will share that says, The changes proposed by The European Commission, The bloc's executive branch, changes core elements of GDP are making it easier for companies to share anonymized and pseudonymized personal data sets. Just makes me go, hmm, and think, now what would the insights industry be if we've now, if we're loosening up GDPR? What? I don't even know how to get my head around that because GDPR was like, we at least felt like at least people are GDPR compliant and our participants' data is safe. If we loosen that up, what does that mean? Will people still, I don't know, I went to this place of ethics and, you know, And will people say, oh, phew, I can lighten up The work that we do to keep things safe? Or will they say, no, we're still going to adhere to some of the standards that have been in place already? Well, what's going to happen there? We don't know yet.

Lenny Murphy: Although I think The goal is to increase data utility, data utilization across. I mean, how can you, from its agentic infrastructure that's data driven, etc, etc. I mean, it's kind of bound to impact these things, because that's all about the movement of data. Yeah, an agent, a shopping agent. So it makes sense to adapt, share the concerns of ensuring how we do that, that it's still compliant from a privacy standpoint. But I must say, I generally, I don't think of The I don't think of governments in general as being very adaptive. And particularly The EU. And I have to say, hats off. I'm glad to see them adapting. Which, go back to The original point, when you got The EU adapting, that tells you where things are going.

Karen Lynch: You're not getting out of this, get in The freaking ring. Your turn. All right. Well, speaking of adapting, you know, a story came by The way, Sint and Repdata deepening their alliance, Sint has selected Research Defender as their core quality partner. And of course, they did a press release of it, you know, good self promotion for both of these brands, both good partners of ours. What's interesting to me about it, when I kind of clicked on this is that, you know, it says in The release that it was a competitive RFP process. That's what I want to focus on, not just like, hey, yay, you for your partnership. But that scent was like, you know what, we need to take action, because that's what you and I have been preaching, right? It's like, our research providers need to take action, our sample providers need to take action to shore up their data sets. And I love that they did an RFP process. I didn't know that that was out there. That didn't come my way. Why would it? Um, and I hope that others follow suit. I hope that others, you know, look at this and say, Huh, what was their RFP process? Like, what was You know, like, I just think that's really important. Like, yes, you should be figuring out who your data quality partner is right now. And I think that I've never been more relieved that a niche service provider in our industry exists as I feel about the data quality fighting fraud parties that are out there. And I hope more of them pop up, because I really think that's important. And I hope more of these RFPs float around out there and we do the work.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, right there with you. And I also recognize that this stuff ain't free. Yeah. So if you're buying a sample, you may see an increase in cost. Yeah. And that's the price we pay for higher quality stuff, right? Yes, yes. And it goes here too. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but I would certainly encourage people not to say, oh wait, it's 10 cents more. I'm not going to pay for it.

Karen Lynch: Well, I don't, we can go off on that, but everything's up in the air right now, because if we're, if we're saving some money, um, you know, with some efficiency using LLMs to help us do some of the work, well then guess what? That savings might be offset by, uh, you know, a higher price sample in our research flows. So, you know, the pricing model, just, you know, rip it up, start over. Right.

Lenny Murphy: Well, we'll get to an example of that, uh, here in a few minutes. Let's talk about money though. The, uh, cause there were some. Some fundraisers. Great question. Good name.

Karen Lynch: Great name.

Lenny Murphy: Raised series A led by Inovia to accelerate enterprise research democratization. What does that mean? They're not to sell them to their insights organization. They're selling to The brand or, you know, to The marketers, The brand product managers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Karen Lynch: And I guess they're, they're, they're a leading kind of platform for democratizing UX research specifically. So I'm like, all right, cool. And I do love the name. I mean, it's a hard one to resist. So yeah, pretty cool. 13 million series A

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, that's a good, that's a good A round. You don't get, yeah, you don't get that type of money for an A round unless The investors think that you're going to be at a hundred million in revenue in fairly short order. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: So, we see you, great answer, great question. Let's do a great answer with you. Yeah, that's right. Raise your answer. No, we see you, great question.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, all right. Realizing, they spun off their creative intelligence business. So they focus more on just attention measurement. So I think that's The, we'll see this in tech companies that have more of an agency type of model that they've had to do for a long time. Maybe, you know, Kavi, that off from The iceberg to focus more on just The tech solutions.

Karen Lynch: Isn't there in this, it's hard for me to like to read and talk at the same time, but they're focusing on their vision AI solution also, like Verify. So they're like, yeah, yeah, let's focus on this product right here because they're onto something there. I think that's interesting and I like The focus back to positioning and what you do really solidly knowing that, I think that that's a play that, I'm like, okay, I think a strategic move, whether you like it or not, it's still a move, it's not stagnancy.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, yep. And then this one, a little personal one here, so many folks in The industry know Bernie Malinov of Element 54, Canadian company, one of The nicest guys around, just a mench, I was called a mench earlier this week, I was looking for a chance to share that. Acquired by Leger, which big, big old Canadian firm, does all types of stuff, right? Kind of age side marketing research. Hats off to them. So Bernie's gonna lead their advertising research business. And that's just a really, really cool outcome. Love to see the hard work of people like, just an example, right? I think he was at Ipsos. He left Ipsos, founded his own thing. I have no idea. He was building it up. You build it up, and now he's part of Leger, and that's fantastic.

Karen Lynch: This is apparently Leger's 15th acquisition.

Lenny Murphy: They have been very inquisitive. Interesting. Very inquisitive. And buying niche capabilities, not just... I think they've bought some pretty transformative ones as well. But they remind me a lot of Ipsos and Kantar back in... Their major consolidation phase, right? And they're, they're getting to that, that level. Um, they're, they're turned into a very significant player. Um, uh, so watch them, uh, The hats, hats off to Bernie into The, to The show.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. All right. There's looking at the clock. I'm like, Holy cow. We're 32 in the first three, then I'll chime in.

Lenny Murphy: All right, cool. Uh, numerator unveiled their AI capabilities and their insights platform. Streamline and accelerate data analysis. I spoke to New Mary this week. A lot of folks don't realize that they are a, because of The integration of Kantar, you know, that they actually are a, they have their own platform, they have high quality data, they have behavioral data, et cetera, et cetera. So cool for them. They are trying to get the word out by doing that. Zappy, their brand health tracker, always on, accessible, And of course that's tied into the innovation and brand health stuff that they already do. So very cool. The metadata IO, I did not know about these guys. They announced one, The F1 Academy is part of its AI native advertising push. And my take on this was this is an AI central platform that does everything from analyzing data to execution. Of creativity in one AI central platform. So that was pretty cool. All right, your turn.

Karen Lynch: Just so we can share our voices. Sprout Social unveiled Trellis, which is their new proprietary AI agent, turning social data into instant enterprise intelligence. So basically, you know, taking a look at that data that's existing out there, reeling insights, recommending actions, billions social data points. So, um, you know, my, uh, I perk up a little bit every time I see some sort of intelligence in The mix, right? Like I'm like, all right, because it's not just insights, it's intelligence. And, and anyway, you have me. All right. Firefish, firefish. This is where I get a little, uh, anyway, um, I get a little, um, my interest is peaked. Uh, qualified AI is now voice enabled to deepen, deepen and and really speed up their qualitative insights capture. So the use of voice, they're saying, you know, kind of allows, it's faster than typing for some people to just respond via voice than to have a voice conversation. So quality scale with voice integration, not typing. And, you know, what they do say in this is that they are pairing it with, pairing these trained AI moderators with Firefish experts. So maybe moderating isn't the expertise anymore, but the expertise is the guide, you know, the creation of the guide, the setup of the work, engaging with the data, interpreting the results. So kind of The consultant part of The qualitative consultants work world, right? The moderating is, anyway, I could go off on a little tangent there. But let me tell you about Strat7, which kind of partners with that. So they launched Maya, an AI moderator, debuting in London, running Adaptive WhatsApp conversations. And, you know, they're also saying Maya doesn't negate The need for human interpretation, but she's processing all of The data, you know, much, much faster and points The human where to go. So all of these platforms are saying, I don't want to be, I don't want to take The human out of it, right? We need humans. So it's that AI-Qual integration that we've talked about. But I'm sure that it's making a lot of qualitative researchers uncomfortable as they're trying out what their role in life is right now. So this is my plug for an organization that I care about, and get yourself to The QRCA conference this year. I think these conversations are going to be critical. I think that what's happening on stage, yes, there's some qual content, talking to a bot, agentic AI, et cetera, et cetera. There is some qual content on their agenda, but The most important part of this conference is going to be brainstorming that happens at The dining around, you know, just kind of talking about The industry in general, trying to understand The role of The qualitative research or what it means for everybody. So anyway, so I, I wanted to, I wanted to be a resource for folks out there. I am going to attend this year. That's been confirmed. So I am going to get myself there and I'm excited about that because I think that there's some important conversations.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. So really all the growth is around qual. We saw that in grit too. I mean, this is where the explosion is happening. I want to throw out one article I'm sorry that we didn't mention but I thought it was just a circle back around a few weeks ago. We talked about black swan being acquired by mental this week Karley if you can add that link in its bottom bullet. It's The bottom bullet. Oh, is it? I'm sorry. I didn't scroll down enough.

Karen Lynch: Oh, you're good.

Lenny Murphy: Okay. Well, then there we go. Okay Karley's got it The It's The interest that this what we thought we would see is like they're combining their mental data with Black Swan's data for predictive intelligence. And they've launched a new report series based on that. And that's that type of one plus one equals three types of scenarios that we're looking at. And we're probably gonna see more of that. So really interesting, compelling stuff on how those companies combine. I just hadn't scrolled down enough, sorry.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, all good. Thanks for reading. And this will be the last thing we share. We're still doing it in 40 minutes, which is good. I did that rapid round, which I like, another LinkedIn post for y'all to look at. Edward Cotton highlighted a large academic study suggesting digital twins fail to capture real human behavior for insights work. Okay, and then The paper is in The link, but it is one of those threads that get into The comments, because that's where The juicy, that's where The juicy stuff is happening. Anyway, and some of the people chiming in and what they're chiming in it's like, okay, I love a good controversial, you know, kind of post in there because some may say, look, there's a need that digital twins are, you know, are helping us fill. So let it exist. And some might say, oh, heck no, human only. And so the opposing views are fascinating to take in.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Can I add something real quick? And I know we're trying to wrap up, but because of The perspective So I know a company who is trying to, they have solved The problem, this report, evidence, which is that even digital twins trained on massive amounts of data, that The AI still, it's just more logical than humans. So it still answers in a way that is not really reflective at a deep level of our emotional reactions to things. And that was the core point of that. I do know that there are companies working on the synthetic sample side that believe they have tackled that, that they have resolved that issue. So as you're reading through this, recognize that this was a perspective on a very specific data set and a very specific test. And just because it's out there today doesn't mean it's true tomorrow.

Karen Lynch: So- like, you know, Read The third for The T, like, take in The controversy because, you know, because I actually, I feel that when you Read something like that, your own point of view gets solidified, right? Like, I don't think these things are one or the other. I think it's additive. And I just will always feel that way. I'm like, yeah, it's not, it's additive. Like, it's just, you know, more tools in The toolbox for different use cases. And I, it just made me, reading this made me realize this is not, this is not an either or situation. Let's not, let's not vilify either. Let's not say it is the only way to go. And let's not say human only. Let's, you know, let's not say AI only versus a human moderator, like no purpose, like anything else, or equal or quant, what method fits for purpose, right? So we read provocative posts, figure out what your point of view is. And I think sometimes just reading The act of reading them helps solidify what you believe. 100%.

Lenny Murphy: All right, we are off next week. So Thanksgiving here in The US for those who are not here. So no exchange, no.

Karen Lynch: I can't wait to have a four day weekend. I don't think I've wanted a Thanksgiving holiday as much as I want this one right now. So I'm psyched.

Lenny Murphy: I hear you. Actually, my son's birthday is on Thanksgiving day. So we're doing Thanksgiving day on his birthday. Friday, we're celebrating Thanksgiving. I mean, so right there with you, I am so looking forward to the time off. Everybody be well, if you're here in The US.

Karen Lynch: Oh, and can we spoil one more thing?

Lenny Murphy: Yes.

Karen Lynch: So we're off next week. Then the following week is The first week of December and we will have a guest. We will keep The guest secret till we promote it. That is our, but let's let people know that we will be having a guest co-host The first week of December. The next time I tune in, it'll be a fun show.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. And The week after, as we head into The end of The year, we do our tacky Christmas sweater.

Karen Lynch: Yes.

Lenny Murphy: Third year in a row, right?

Karen Lynch: All right. All right. Well, yours is tacky. I don't think I've ever gone tacky. I'm not really a tacky Christmas sweater.

Lenny Murphy: Well, whatever. We're dressing for Christmas.

Karen Lynch: I will dress festively. Festive. Because when I see those sweaters that are like that, I get a little cringe. So not on you.

Lenny Murphy: They are cringing. It's okay. They are.

Karen Lynch: Yes. Okay. I'll get ready. I'll get ready for that. See, this is why I need a long weekend. I got to go shopping. All right.

Lenny Murphy: Everybody have a great weekend. Take care. Bye bye.

Karen Lynch: Bye everyone.

Links from the episode:

2026 Global Market Research Trends Report 

Google announces Gemini 3 as battle with OpenAI intensifies 

The A.I. Boom Has Found Another Gear. Why Can’t People Shake Their Worries? 

The Global Data Quality Initiative released three new resources aimed at strengthening trust and integrity in research 

Adrien Vermeirsch 

Fraud Awareness Week 

Europe is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws 

Cint and Rep Data Strengthen Alliance to Enhance Global Research Quality and Trust 

Great Question Secures $13M Series A Funding from Inovia to Accelerate Research Democratization for Enterprises 

Realeyes Spins Off Creative Intelligence Business 

Leger Announces Acquisition of Element54 

Numerator Unveils AI-Powered Capabilities Within Its Insights Platform that Streamline and Accelerate Data Analysis 

Zappi Introduces Its First Brand Health Tracker 

Metadata.io launched MetadataONE 

Sprout Social Unveils Trellis, its AI Agent That Turns Social Data Into Instant Enterprise Intelligence 

Firefish’s QualifyAI is now voice-enabled to deepen and speed qualitative insights capture 

STRAT7 launched “Maya” 

The QRCA Annual Conference 

Mintel launched “Winning Innovation Territories” 

Edward Cotton highlighted a large academic study suggesting digital “twins” fail to capture real human behavior for insights work